Tom Norrell: Following the lifestyle of Jesus

Friday

Sep 6, 2019 at 1:00 PM

Today I want us to think about two stories.

One written in the Gospel of John about Jesus and the other written by Luke in the Book of Acts about the Apostle Peter.

I had been serving a church in Northern Illinois for two years. There were a lot of cultural differences. Someone on a committee asked me a direct question. Before I could even speak, several of them said, “Don’t tell us a story.” I replied Southern preachers tell stories. The writers of the Gospels were storytellers.

Let us think about these two stories, not necessarily in the order that they were written, but in the order in which they happened. The New Testament was written to address issues in the First Century Church. Luke and John were not just writing for fun, but to answer questions about life.

In the fourth chapter of the Gospel of John, we see the Founder of the Feast, Jesus of Nazareth. He had been up north and was now going back to Judah. He is in Samaria. Shocking.

Two miles from where I grew up, there was a long road between Simpsonville and Fountain Inn. There on Scuffletown Road outside of Simpsonville, Ku Klux Klansmen would sometime gather. There were cockfights, boxing, wrestling in barns, and illegal gambling. Decent people didn’t hang out in Scuffletown after dark.

Good people, much less religious teachers didn’t go to Samaria, why?

• These people had their own sanctuary and didn’t go to the Temple in Jerusalem.

• The people were ethnically different because many of their ancestors had married Mesopotamians, they were collaborators. Their ancestors had been allies of Assyria and Babylon.

On this occasion, Jesus spoke to a woman, alone. If that wasn’t bad enough, she was also a Samaritan. This was seen as vulgar and a waste of teaching time. It was the middle of the day at Jacob’s Well; this indicates she was an outcast. She had been married five times and divorced. So the apostles’ response, when they returned, was “go away, why are you two talking?”

Then she perceives Jesus is the Messiah. She acknowledges His spiritual leadership. She brings people of the village out of Samaria and Jesus preaches and leads many to be converted to “The Way.” He stays with them for two days and tells many of the Kingdom of God.

In the 1920s my Great Uncle Louis left South Carolina and ran off to Florida. He joined the circus and married a “dyed haired woman,” a trapeze artist. “We just don’t do that.” My aunts told me, horror of horrors. We were traumatized down to the third generation. Louis came close to being a Samaritan, but to be blunt, there is not a word in our vocabulary equivalent to Samaritan. It takes a long list of insulting names to come up with an equivalent.

In the next story (Acts 10) we find the Apostle Peter is unsure and anxious. The First Christian Jews kept kosher to some degree. They got wind that filthy Philistines, Pagan Greeks, and Roman Slaves were becoming Christians. Peter is upset, in turmoil, and yet he knows Jesus’ teachings. So too, the church was in turmoil — what shall we do with the Gentiles? He laid down on a sun porch, the roof of someone’s house and has a vision, not a dream. A God–given vision of all the animals who were either clean or unclean according to the Law of Moses. He sees a sheet covering the four corners of the earth. In it are all types of creatures, clean and unclean.

He took this vision to mean that Gentiles could become Christian without strict adherence of the Law.

Under the leadership of Peter and Paul, Gentiles are converted to the faith including poor people and many slaves. According to church historians, the First Century Church practiced egalitarianism, pacifism and non-violence. Women were pastors and teachers and everyone worshipped together. They brought bread and wine and fish, etc. to worship and ate together. Afterward, the leftovers were taken by Deacons to shut-ins, the sick, and in the first decade of the movement people even sold all their goods and gave the proceeds to the apostles. They had all things in common, again, which was not too difficult given how poor they were.

After A.D. 100 the church continued to grow and men reasserted a patriarchal system. Women became Second Class Citizens again. Over the next 200 years, some wealthy folks became Christian. Emperor Constantine endorsed Christianity. His children made it the official religion of the Empire. There was a new capital in Constantinople, Greece, with a Colossal Church at its center. Male Archbishops and Bishops in grand regalia cooperated with the Imperial Court. Surely, Jesus and Peter didn’t really mean what they said? The church always officially preached equality, but some were becoming a little more equal than others.

Society in general slowly accepts the equality of all people. — In Byzantium and in the Middle Ages, society was stratified with Royals, Nobles, landowners, merchants, craftsmen, professionals, serfs, indentured servants and slaves. Before long the Medicis (a wealthy Italian family that ruled Florence and Tuscany during most of the period from 1434-1737) had become popes. You know the rest of the story.

When the radical equality of all people was so clearly a teaching of Jesus of Nazareth and the Apostles, why did the church and God’s people stray?

Evolutionists and Anthropologists teach us that equality is not the natural state of primates. The Silverback Gorilla aided by a Matriarch Gorilla enforce the social order. Evolutionary theorists teach us that groups that have clear hierarchies survive, even thrive, and pass these genes and behaviors on, but Christianity is not about survival. Christianity is tough. Remember “he who gains his life must lose it, and he who would be first must be last.” “The last shall be first, and the first shall be last.” -Matthew 20:16 KJV

What shall we do? Admit tribalism is inherited and like alcoholism must be fought every day. I am and you are, tribalistic. We favor and promote our family and those like us. We define “us” differently; politically, educationally, racially, gender orientation, artistically, and nationality. It is still tribalism.

We can name the feeling of superiority and then ask for forgiveness. A great liberation theologian, Frederick Herzog taught us the mantra, not, “There but for the grace of God go I” but, rather ... “There by the grace of God, go I.”

We can look for white privilege. We can initiate radical hospitality. Vicky, my wife, and I, sometimes invite marginalized people to dinner.

Expect to be kicked around, to be awkward, to make mistakes. You are not always going to be perceived as “cool,” but remember, this is God's mandated exercise!

It is the Jesus lifestyle!

Dr. Tom Norrell is pastor of Central United Methodist Church in Spartanburg. He can be reached at tom@centralumcs.org.

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